Trump press secretary pick removed post praising Pence on January 6, then ran for Congress as an election denier

By Andrew Kaczynski, CNN

(CNN) — Karoline Leavitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, deleted two social media posts she shared after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol — including a retweet praising then-Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the 2020 election.

The post included a video of Pence calling the attack “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol” as he presided over the certification of the results hours after the riot. Trump to this day criticizes Pence for certifying the results of the 2020 election, falsely claiming it was stolen due to rampant voter fraud.

In another post praising the actions of a Capitol Hill police officer who lured rioters away from lawmakers, Leavitt wrote simply, “A hero.”

Leavitt, who at the time was 23 and had recently departed Trump’s White House Press Office, had just accepted a job working for New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Leavitt then ran unsuccessfully for a New Hampshire congressional seat in 2022, positioning herself as a staunch election denier.

“I’m the only candidate in this race to say that President Trump won in 2020, and I will work my hardest every single day to make sure we get to the bottom of it,” Leavitt said during a September 2021 interview with OANN, which she posted on her X account.

In another interview in October of that year, Leavitt again denied that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election legitimately.

“I do believe that if we were to audit all 50 states in this country, there is absolutely no way we would find Joe Biden legitimately won 81 million votes,” she said. “I fundamentally do not believe that, and I will tell you the majority of voters on the Republican side do not believe that either. We feel as though this election was taken away from us.”

“We saw irregularities across the country,” she added, falsely.

Leavitt won the Republican primary in that race but went on to lose the general election to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas by nearly 10%.

Youngest White House press secretary

At 27, Leavitt will be the youngest person ever to hold the position of White House press secretary. Following her 2022 campaign loss, Leavitt joined Trump’s PAC and then went to work for the Trump campaign, rising to become the campaign’s national press secretary.

Leavitt’s shift from praising those who defended the democratic process on January 6 to embracing election denialism reflects a broader trend among Republicans who initially distanced themselves from Trump after the riot, only to rally behind him later as his grip on the party tightened.

As Leavitt steps into her role in the briefing room, her past statements and actions will likely draw scrutiny over how she balances messaging on behalf of Trump with maintaining credibility in the press briefing room.

Trump praised Leavitt’s appointment, calling her “smart,” “tough” and “effective,” as he is expected to shake up the traditional White House press briefing in some way.

Leavitt declined to comment directly to CNN for this story. In a statement, the Trump transition team did not address her deleted tweets and instead reverted to making false claims about election fraud in 2020.

“Karoline was completely correct in saying there were irregularities with the 2020 election and any cases of fraud should be investigated in order to protect and preserve the sanctity of our Democracy,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, told CNN in a statement. “She will make a wonderful Press Secretary championing the policies and agenda of President Trump, and there is nobody better who can articulate that to the public.”

Deleted posts related to January 6

In the days after January 6, Leavitt shared several posts critical of the riot, including one from Sen. Tim Scott’s then-communications director that read: “Love him or hate him, he kept the wheels of democracy moving & pushed forward to certify his own loss. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.”

Along with the post about Pence, Leavitt also shared a tweet praising the actions of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman for his heroic actions during the riot, adding to the tweet “a hero,” about Goodman.

The tweet, sent from a then-CNN congressional producer, described the moment that showed Goodman at the top of a staircase confronting a mob of rioters advancing toward him.

Goodman noticed the unguarded Senate chamber entrance to his left and made a quick decision to lead the rioters away to his right — actions that have been credited with possibly saving senators’ lives.

Both those posts were deleted from Leavitt’s feed.

CNN reviewed Leavitt’s tweets and found those two were among the only ones removed of those she sent between November 2020 and January 2021. Most of Leavitt’s tweets from this period focused on the success of Operation Warp Speed in delivering a vaccine for Covid-19 in record time. Another included false claims of voter fraud in Georgia during the 2020 election.

Leavitt did leave up a tweet saying she was “heartbroken” over the Capitol riot and thanking Capitol police for keeping her and others safe. Leavitt did not explain why this was kept up but others were removed when asked by CNN.

The-CNN-Wire
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